â€œTimes they are a-changinâ€™â€¦â€

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Pennsylvania Republican senator Rick Santorum â€“ Golden Boy of the Christian Right, rabid homophobe, and Bush â€œyes-manâ€ â€“ was crushed in the 2006 election by a margin larger than anyone had expected.

Also on election day 2006, it was reported by the Associated Press that James Dobson, leader of the antigay Focus on the Family and close friend of disgraced Rev. Ted Haggard, â€œwill be one of the people overseeing counseling forâ€ Mr. Haggard. Later on November 7, Dobson bailed out: â€œI donâ€™t have the time.â€

And just after noon on November 8, 2006, time ran out for Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, in whom Bush had only recently expressed â€œtotal faith.â€ According to Bush, â€œAmerica is safer and the world more secureâ€ because of Donald Rumsfeldâ€™s leadership. If that were so, why the abrupt change following the election?

The entire world knew Rumsfeld was a disaster. Did â€œstay the courseâ€ GWB not just realize that? No one could be that stupid, not even George W. Could he?

Clearly Bush and the GOP are scrambling given Americansâ€™ overwhelmingly expression of dissatisfaction expressed at the ballot box. Dobson and the Christian Right are also running scared, as well they should. â€œHubrisâ€ and â€œdownfallâ€ are inextricably bound.

Exclusion and deviousness were (and still are) the modi operandi of
both the GOP and the Christian Right. Witness Texas governor Rick
Perry: â€œNon-Christians condemned to hell.â€
Perry was attending a fire and brimstone theopolitical rally at San
Antonioâ€™s Cornerstone Church presided over by Rev. John Hagee who told
the flock (1,500 plus a radio and TV audience), â€œIf you live your life
and donâ€™t confess your sins to God almighty through the authority of
Christ and his blood, Iâ€™m going to say this very plainly, youâ€™re going
straight to hell with a nonstop ticket." Perry agreed: â€œIn my faith,
thatâ€™s what it says, and Iâ€™m a believer of that.â€

As for deviousness, my polling location had always been a local public
school. But that school is being expanded and renovated. The
construction made it impossible to use it this year, so my polling
location was relocated to St. John of the Cross Parochial School. I
find it difficult to believe that this Republican-dominated county
could not find a non-religious site for a polling place.

When I walked passed the church, rectory and into the Catholic schoolâ€™s
gymnasium, crucifixes were everywhere. I was offended. Seems my
experience and reaction were not unique, as the Associated Press
reported:

Crucifix Hung Over Ballot Box Where Antigay Amendment Being Decided

(Middleton, Wisconsin) A Jewish man whose polling place was at a
Catholic church said he was disturbed to see a crucifix hanging over a
ballot box.

Dr. Zeev Bar-Av of Middleton said issues on Tuesdayâ€™s ballot such as
gay marriage and the death penalty â€œare essentially on the national
divide on religion and non-religion.â€

The 65-year-old Middleton man said, â€œIf there is a place where church
and state should be separated, the polling place should be it.â€

Wisconsin passed a constitutional â€œgay marriageâ€ ban, as did several
other states. But an antigay constitutional amendment failed in
Arizona. That stateâ€™s motto is, appropriately, â€œDitat Deus.â€

â€œGodâ€ would indeed enrich all people and all families, not single out
some for condemnation and exclusion as the leaders of the Christian
Right preach. How hypocritical that Colorado â€“ home to Ted Haggard and
James Dobsonâ€™s â€œFocus on the Familyâ€ â€“ banned not only same-sex
marriages, but also domestic partnership benefits for gay families and
their children. Focus on the Family and its political arm spent about
$900,000 to defeat equality and condemn families that didnâ€™t fit their
theopolitical agenda.

One rabidly antigay leader of the Christian Right exemplifies the
movementâ€™s deception, hubris and condescending disdain for anyone who
doesnâ€™t blindly obey. A November 10, 2006 article by Larry
Cohler-Esses, editor at large of The Jewish Week made the case:

Christian Right Agenda In Shambles After GOP Defeat
Moderate Evangelicals seen chafing against narrow priorities like abortion, gay rights. Will some work with Dems?

For a man witnessing a debacle in real time, Rev. Louis Sheldon, a
leader of the Christian Right political movement, sounded amazingly
sanguine Tuesday night â€“ even as an early AP exit poll indicated that
almost one-third of white Evangelicals chose a Democrat for Congress.

â€œWe know that in America the people are with us,â€ insisted the founder
and chairman of the Traditional Values Coalition, one of the largest
groups in the Christian right. â€œTheyâ€™re just confused.â€

If you donâ€™t believe and act as delusional dogmatist Sheldon tells you
to, then youâ€™re â€œconfused,â€ a polite way of saying youâ€™re stupid.

Echoing Randall Terryâ€™s proclamation â€“

I want you to just let a wave of intolerance wash over you. I want you
to let a wave of hatred wash over you. Yes, hate is good...Our goal is
a Christian nation. We have a Biblical duty, we are called by God, to
conquer this country. We donâ€™t want equal time. We donâ€™t want pluralism.

â€“ â€œSheldon scoffed at â€¦ the idea that Christian right activists might
cultivate relationships with the newly empowered Democrats.â€ Thatâ€™s the
same Louis P. Sheldon who took money from a client of Jack Abramoff,
the convicted fundraiser and briber. The Abramoff client from whom
Sheldonâ€™s TVC accepted â€œa donationâ€ was an internet gambling firm. At
the time â€œLucky Louieâ€ and the TVC were campaigning against internet
gambling.

Just as telling is the fact that, as Cohler-Esses reported, â€œSheldon
disclosed that he and â€˜a lotâ€™ of others knew about Haggardâ€™s
homosexuality â€˜for awhile ... but we werenâ€™t sure just how to deal with
it.â€™â€ So in true Christian Right and Republican fashion, they just
covered it up.

Whatâ€™s the likelihood of Haggardâ€™s close friend James Dobson having
been among that â€œâ€˜a lotâ€™ of othersâ€ whoâ€™d known about Haggardâ€™s
homosexuality â€œfor awhileâ€? Might this embarrassing collusion have
something to do with Dobsonâ€™s not having time to â€œhelpâ€ his ersatz
friend, now?

Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Donâ€™t stand in the doorway
Donâ€™t block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
Thereâ€™s a battle outside
And it is raginâ€™.
Itâ€™ll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changinâ€™.
â€“ Bob Dylan

The times are indeed changinâ€™. Wasnâ€™t it amazing how quickly the
arrogant my-way-or-no-way George W. Bush seemed to change after the
2006 election? It remains to be seen if heâ€™ll â€œstand in the doorwayâ€ or
â€œblock upâ€ the halls of real change the voters mandated. You have to
wonder what odds â€œLucky Louieâ€ would give on that happening.

As for the politicized Christian Right, their opaque windows have been
badly stained. Their walls of exclusion are crumbling. And theyâ€™re
hopelessly stalled in a dogmatic past, unable to change, as Lou Sheldon
so eloquently stated and â€œI donâ€™t have the timeâ€ Dobson so well
demonstrated.

The future Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said political revenge is
not the agenda, and John Sonegoâ€™s article â€œUnderstanding Haggardâ€™s fall
from graceâ€ expressed the attitude of gay Americans the Christian Right
and their faith-based GOP sycophants had sought to demonize and
disenfranchise (and continue to do so in the name of their perversion
of â€œGodâ€).